Vincent Reynouard

Vincent Reynouard (born 18 February 1969) is a French Holocaust denier and proponent of neo-Nazism. He has been convicted and jailed in France under the Gayssot Act, which bars Holocaust denial.

Biography

Vincent Reynouard was, according to his own writings, attracted by National Socialism at the beginning of his teenage years: "Around 14 years old, I was able to study photos of the Third Reich. I rapidly understood that true socialism, the kind I aspired to, had been realized by Adolf Hitler". A student at the ISMRA in Caen in the early 90s, he created the "Normandy Association for the Awakening of the Citizen" (''Association normande pour l’éveil du citoyen''), which distributed a bulletin named "New Vision" (''Nouvelle vision''), co-authoring it with Rémi Pontier. In it, he declared being part of the "post-revisionist" Holocaust denial movement derived from Robert Faurisson, Alain Guionnet, and Olivier Mathieu, aiming not only to denounce, what he sees as the "myth of the Shoah" but also the " Jewish control" over the modern world. Reynouard was expelled for some time from his university campus for distributing pamphlets and stickers. He also had an active role in the French and European Nationalist Party in which he was briefly the Secretary General in 1991.

Holocaust denial activities and criminal convictions

In 1991, Reynouard was convicted of distributing Holocaust denial literature.2 French Teacher Suspended for Holocaust Denial Activities
Jewish Telegraphic Agency (13 January 1997). Reynouard had given high school students materials "questioning the existence of the gas chambers".Julie C. Suk, "Denying Experience: Holocaust Denial and the Free Speech Theory of the State" in ''The Content and Context of Hate Speech: Rethinking Regulation and Responses'' in
The Content and Context of Hate Speech: Rethinking Regulation and Responses
' (eds. Michael Herz & Peter Molnar: Cambridge University Press, 2012), p. 153. He was tried along with Remi Pontier, the first two people convicted under the Act. Both were members of the neo-Nazi French and European Nationalist Party. Although convicted, he was permitted to continue teaching mathematics at a Honfleur, Normandy high school until 1997, when he was suspended after he was "found to be using the school computer to file documents denying the Holocaust and the fax machine to send the writings to his followers" and "giving his students statistical equations regarding the rate of mortality in Nazi concentration camps".

In the fall of 2000, Reynouard affiliated himself with the Vrij Historisch Onderzoek, a Belgian Holocaust denial and Nazi-sympathizer group. At the time, Reynouard was being investigated by French authorities, and he had chosen to go into exile in Belgium, where he took up residence with a Catholic fundamentalist group in Ixelles, Brussels with close ties to the Society of Saint Pius X.Bertelsmann Stiftung, ''Strategies for Combating Right-wing Extremism in Europe'' (Brookings Institution Press, 2009), p. 151. Reynouard ran the group's French-language operations.

In 2004, Reynouard was convicted by a French court of crimes under the 1990 Gayssot Act for distributing a pamphlet and videocassette that questioned the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre, in which many French villagers were killed. He was sentenced to 24 months in prison, of which 18 months were suspended.

In 2005, Reynouard mailed a 16-page pamphlet entitled "Holocaust? What Is Being Hidden from You" to chambers of commerce, museums, and town halls across France.Erik Bleich, ''The Freedom to Be Racist?: How the United States and Europe Struggle to Preserve Freedom and Combat Racism'' (Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 143 & 183.Michael Whine, "Expanding Holocaust Denial and Legislation Against It" in ''Extreme Speech and Democracy'' (eds. Ivan Hare & James Weinstein). The pamphlet claimed that the Holocaust was "propaganda". As a result, in 2007 Reynouard was sentenced to one year in prison and fined €10,000.

In November 2015, Reynouard was tried before a Normandy court for Holocaust denial in Facebook posts. Reynouard, who chose to represent himself at trial, was sentenced to two years in jail; the sentence was enhanced due to Reynouard's prior convictions.

In November 2022, Reynouard was arrested in Scotland, having fled France in an attempt evade two separate terms of imprisonment, handed down by the French authorities in November 2020 and January 2021 respectively. At the time of his arrest, Reynouard was living under a false identity in Anstruther, where he had reportedly been working as a private tutor.

In popular culture

*1998: ''Terminale'', directed by Francis Girod: played by Bruno Wolkowitch
*2021: ''L'Homme de la cave'', directed by Philippe Le Guay, played by François Cluzet

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reynouard, Vincent
1969 births
Living people
French people convicted of Holocaust denial
French essayists
French male essayists
French prisoners and detainees
French neo-Nazis
Prisoners and detainees of France